This invention relates in general to certain new and useful improvements in toy flying vehicle sets and, more particularly, to propeller-driven toy flying vehicle sets in which a toy flying vehicle is detachably mounted on a hand-held launcher.
There are a number of commercially available toys in which rotation is imparted to one or more rotating members of the toys by pulling out a pull-string against the pressure of a rubber band or spring in order to actuate or "load" the rubber band or the rotating member. Other forms of toys also include a pull-string, which is pulled out against the pressure of a rubber band or spring, and which return the pull-string to its original position at the end of the pulling stroke.
However, toy flying vehicles of the type heretofore produced, particularly of the propeller-driven type, were not capable of being launched from a hand-held launcher. Generally, if such toys were launched from a launcher, the launched portion comprised only a helicopter operable through a helicopter rotor blade. One such toy representative of the prior art is more fully illustrated and described in British Patent No. 743,102, dated Jan. 11, 1956. It was generally found that a propeller-driven airplane was ineffective in hand operated launching for flight in any horizontal trajectory due to the fact that the propeller was not able to provide the necessary pulling force to hold the airplane in flight. It was found that the propeller would cause rotation of the body. Stabilizing of the vehicle usually resulted in low-speed flying capabilities with the duration of the flight being relatively short.
The present invention overcomes these and other problems in the provision of a toy flying vehicle set including a hand-held launcher and a propeller-driven toy flying vehicle which is detachably mounted on the hand-held launcher through an interlock mechanism. When a pull-string is drawn from the launcher, rotation is imparted to a gear train which, in turn, rotates the propeller shaft on the propeller-driven vehicle, such as a toy airplane. Furthermore, the various gears are properly sized so as to produce an accelerator effect, thereby substantially increasing the speed of rotation of the propeller permitting high-speed flying of the toy vehicle for a relatively long duration.
It is therefore the primary object of the present invention to provide a toy flying vehicle set which is capable of being actuated by a pull-string to impart rotation to a propeller on the toy flying vehicle and which permits launching of the toy flying vehicle from a hand-held launcher.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a toy flying vehicle set of the type stated which is constructed of a minimum number of pieces and is relatively durable in its construction.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a toy flying vehicle set of the type stated which requires a relatively small amount of manual labor for construction thereof and which can therefore be manufactured at relatively low unit costs.
It is another salient object of the present invention to provide a toy flying vehicle set of the type stated which includes a unique interlock which detachably couples a drive shaft in the launcher to a propeller shaft on the flying vehicle.
With the above and other objects in view, our invention resides in the novel features of form, construction, arrangement and combination of parts presently described and pointed out in the claims.